OS X 10.9 to add 'power-user' touches, more iOS features, sources say

updated 10:32 am EDT, Mon April 29, 2013

by MacNN Staff

New OS expected to be evolutionary upgrade

The next major upgrade of OS X, v10.9, will concentrate on "power-user" features while bringing in more concepts from iOS, say sources for 9to5Mac. In the former category, several improvements to Finder are expected, such as tagging and tabbed browsing. Fullscreen apps should finally remain open on secondary monitors, and Safari is expected to get a new version with a new backend, improving performance and efficiency.

In general v10.9 is forecast to be an evolutionary step, not making any major interface changes. One possibility is the Mac debut of Siri, but one source claims that recent executive shakeups have shifted around multiple OS X and iOS projects, so Siri may or may not still be in the works even though it was in early v10.9 builds. Also uncertain is whether or not Siri will be in every version of v10.9 or tied to new Mac hardware.

Apple has allegedly been testing a new multitasking scheme for OS X similar to the app switcher in iOS, which would be functional for apps running in the background, one source says. Another possible carryover is iOS' app-pausing technology, which pauses unnecessary processes so that memory and processing power can be dedicated to active and/or essential ones. It's uncertain, however, if the feature will be included in the final v10.9 release.

It's lastly claimed that Apple is working on a major upgrade of its Xcode development suite, v5.0, for sometime later this year. The software is reportedly getting a redesign, including new app testing tools.

Apple has promised to show off OS X 10.9 at WWDC 2013. 9to5's sources say that the OS is currently codenamed "Cabernet," but at WWDC the company should announce a different name, in keeping with the big-cat theme every edition of OS X has used so far.

I'm not against progress, but lately these OS upgrades seem to just introduce a bunch of new features that I don't care to use, create problems upon their introduction due to insufficient testing and render some useful programs obsolete. Sometimes the change for change sake is puzzling. For instance, in software update, now done through the App Store, why did they decide to omit the size of the download?

As an apple developer since 1984 (yea i'm that old), I have been so disappointed with the last 2 version of OS X that I have begun seriously looking at what my next "worK" OS will be. The fact that 10.9 maybe a "evolutionary step... with "power-user features" give me pause and even a little hope (but only a little).

If Apple continues down the road of trying to make the Mac in to an iOS device then I, for one, am gone. On the other hand if Apple does begin to offer the "power-user" to once again own their environment and give us back to ability to control all of what we have on our mac-hines then I will once again "bleed in 6 colors"!

As an apple developer since 1984 (yea i'm that old), I have been so disappointed with the last 2 version of OS X that I have begun seriously looking at what my next "worK" OS will be. The fact that 10.9 maybe a "evolutionary step... with "power-user features" give me pause and even a little hope (but only a little).

If Apple continues down the road of trying to make the Mac in to an iOS device then I, for one, am gone. On the other hand if Apple does begin to offer the "power-user" to once again own their environment and give us back to ability to control all of what we have on our mac-hines then I will once again "bleed in 6 colors"!

They'll release a Cocoa version of ResEdit just for you. :p

Whenever I read something like this, I'm a little confused as to what on earth you might possibly want?

I'm happier with 10.8 than I've ever been since my early days, chipping away at System 6 and System 7 with a copy of ResEdit.

Though I think that the term "power user" has ceased to have any meaning at all. It used to include people that configured their own menu structure in Word 5.1a (I did), or that knew how to use Conflict Catcher, or had multiple INIT/cdev configurations for different usages.

All of that is pretty much completely irrelevant, right down to the Word menu structure (since Office now completely rearranges your menus for you on its own *cough*).

The next major upgrade of OS X, v10.9, will concentrate on "power-user" features while bringing in more concepts from iOS, say sources for 9to5Mac. In the former category, several improvements to Finder are expected, such as tagging and tabbed browsing.

It's about time... I've been a fan of TotalFinder ever since I knew about it. Tabs make the Finder much easier to manipulate.

...and what, precisely, are you actually unable to do with the machine, as opposed to "unable to do this with the included software"? Because if your gripe is just "Apple's built-in stuff is underpowered for my purposes" then you clearly aren't paying attention. OS X does vastly, vastly more stuff out of the box than the "Classic" OS ever did, and every new version adds new stuff the OS can do out of the box. Even if you count every third-party thing included with Mac OS 9, it still couldn't do half the stuff which is official Apple-branded functionality in OS X -- to say nothing of the fact that for many years there WAS no free development environment for Macs; you could pay thousands for MPW -- later hundreds -- or hundreds for a third-party IDE like CodeWarrior or THINK C.

"Power user" means having the ability to do what *you* want with your machine, not what Apple dictates you can do with it.

I would like you to explain to me how a fully compliant UNIX is less adaptable and configurable than the Classic Macintosh system was.

I suspect that people who call themselves "power users" generally think of GUI power, which is funny, but even AppleScript is total kid stuff compared to what ACTUAL power users can script in the Terminal.

I think a few people have trouble dealing with the fact that this middle ground is gone. Almost everything I needed to be a "power user" for in decades past just works, or has shifted to dealing with the tools I require, rather than the underlying system.

And those who need real power over their systems have SO MUCH MORE than they ever did before.

Now, all in all, I would have to agree with you that in the 'heady days' of PowerPC there was a lot of stuff we had to do to make the machine in "our own image" but in fact we did have a lot more control over what was on the machine; AND once, as you stated, we had a fully compliant UNIX environment we had so much more control then ever before.

That said, in 10.0 threw 10.6.x, the GUI power users along with us UNIX (cli crazies) were able to say if we wanted to keep things like "Game Center" or "Launch Pad" on our machines. There was no need to go into "Terminal" and use "rmdir" to delete an Apple 'required' app; hell there were no required applications of any kind other then system and finder (for the most part).

My point is that in the Mac world users could be "Power-Users" while not being 3Li73 like you and me. :-)

I always told my clients the one truly great thing about the Mac was you could be a real power user without understanding every handle and pointer. Developers were encouraged to build into their apps at least 2 ways to do things (and often more), It was up to the user to find out which one was best for them. These days Apple seems to want to tell users how to use their apps and is removing anything they think is inconsequential (for example the display resolution menu). I mean just ask "FinalCut Pro" users... ask them how many are upgrading to 10 or moving to Adobe?

Apple's answer seems to be now that unless you want to learn cli and UNIX bash commands you have no right to control your machine. To me that is unacceptable.

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